Driving cultural advancement

Since the launch of reform and opening-up, the Party has attached equal emphasis to material progress and cultural-ethical progress. As a result, socialist culture has thrived, the national spirit has been lifted, and national solidarity has grown stronger. At the same time, however, misguided ideas have often cropped up, such as money worship, hedonism, ultra-individualism, and historical nihilism, online discourse has been rife with disorder, and certain leading officials have demonstrated ambiguity in their political stance and a lack of fighting spirit. These phenomena all have a serious impact on people's thinking and the environment for public discourse.

The Party has maintained an accurate perspective on the trends of collisions taking place worldwide between different ideas and cultures, as well as of the profound changes in Chinese people's ways of thinking. It has stressed that ideological work shapes the collective mind of a country and forges the soul of a nation, and that confidence in one's culture, which is a broader, deeper, and more fundamental form of self-confidence, is the most essential, profound, and enduring source of strength for the development of a country and a nation. Without a thriving culture and firm confidence in it, the Chinese nation cannot achieve rejuvenation.

Since the 18th National Congress, we have seen a sweeping and fundamental shift in the ideological domain, a notable boost in confidence in our culture among all Party members and all Chinese people, and a major increase in cohesiveness throughout society. All of this has provided solid ideological guarantees and powerful inspiration for opening-up new horizons for the cause of the Party and the country in the new era.

Promoting social advancement

Since the launch of reform and opening-up, the Chinese people have witnessed notable improvements in their living standards and in social governance. Meanwhile, in pace with the changing times and social progress, they have developed an increasingly strong desire for a better life and growing demands for democracy, rule of law, fairness, justice, security, and a better environment.

The Central Committee has stressed that satisfying the people's aspirations for a better life is the goal of all the Party's work. And the Party was deeply aware that only by securing a victory in the fight against poverty, could China fulfill its First Centenary Goal. Therefore, extraordinary moves were made to advance the fight against poverty with greater resolve, more targeted approaches, and more powerful measures.

Since the 18th National Congress, 832 counties, 128,000 villages, and nearly 100 million rural residents that fell below the current poverty line have been lifted out of poverty. China has thus achieved the poverty reduction target laid out in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule, brought about a historic resolution to the problem of absolute poverty in China, and created a miracle in the human history of poverty reduction.

In 2020, facing the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, the Central Committee responded calmly and decisively, and set out the general requirements to stay confident, stand united, and adopt a science-based approach and targeted measures. With the commitment to putting the people and human life above all else, the Party led the whole nation in an all-out people's war to curb the spread of the virus, and a great spirit has been forged in the fight against COVID-19.